Sports Minister quits over FOBTs delay

By Nathan Joyes

Tracey Crouch has resigned from government, after a decision was announced to delay a proposed reform on gambling regulations.

The government agreed to cut the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) from £100 to £2. However, it was announced this week the reduction would not be implemented until October 2019, a change Crouch expected to be made by April 2019.

She decided to tweet a picture of her resignation letter, which was sent to Prime Minister Theresa May, after calling the decision to delay the reform “unjustifiable.”

The former UK Sports Minister said: “The alignment of the stake reduction with an increase in remote gaming duty was a condition put on by the Treasury to provide fiscal neutrality but is not a technical necessity, so there is no reason why implementation cannot come in sooner than October.

“From the time of the announcement to reduce stakes and its implementation, over £1.6bn will be lost on these machines, a significant amount of which will be in our most deprived areas, including my own constituency.”